Worldwide Innovations

What happens when NASA partners with Google? A quantum computer

2015-12-09T12:52:00.001-08:00

Solving some of the most complicated technological problems on or off this planet is what NASA and Google do best. Now, together, they are creating machines to exceed normal computing ability by 100 million times.
Google and D-Wave, a quantum-computing firm, are developing a new computer that that are next to impossible to solve on conventional computers at the NASA Ames campus in Mountain View, Calif., Bloomberg reported.
"We have already encountered problems we would like to solve that are unfeasible with conventional computers,” John Giannandrea, an engineering vice president at Google, said at a press conference Tuesday. “We want to understand the future that may lie ahead of us in non-conventional computing."

Samantha Cristoforetti: Six things to do when bored in space

2015-06-11T11:35:00.004-07:00

Three astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) have returned to Earth.

One of the astronauts, Samantha Cristoforetti from Italy, has even set a world record.
She has spent the longest time in space than any other woman on a single mission.
Here's a list of six things Samantha has been doing during her extraordinary time in space

Samantha has been on the ISS with her crewmates, Anton Shkaplerov and Terry Virts, the commander of Expedition 43.
The ISS offers three state-of-the-art laboratories where research and experiments can be done without gravity.
Samantha's work in space is devoted to science and maintaining the weightless research centre.
It's definitely not the worst job in the universe!

NASA Spacecraft Reactivated to Hunt for Asteroids

2013-08-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

PASADENA, Calif. -- A NASA spacecraft that discovered and characterized tens of thousands of asteroids throughout the solar system before being placed in hibernation will return to service for three more years starting in September, assisting the agency in its effort to identify the population of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects, as well as those suitable for asteroid exploration missions.

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) will be revived next month with the goal of discovering and characterizing near-Earth objects (NEOs), space rocks that can be found orbiting within 28 million miles (45 million kilometers) from Earth's path around the sun. NASA anticipates WISE will use its 16-inch (40-centimeter) telescope and infrared cameras to discover about 150 previously unknown NEOs and characterize the size, albedo and thermal properties of about 2,000 others -- including some which could be candidates for the agency's recently announced asteroid initiative.

"The WISE mission achieved its mission's goals and as NEOWISE extended the science even further in its survey of asteroids. NASA is now extending that record of success, which will enhance our ability to find potentially hazardous asteroids, and support the new asteroid initiative," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington. "Reactivating WISE is an excellent example of how we are leveraging existing capabilities across the agency to achieve our goal."

NASA's asteroid initiative will be the first mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid. It represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities that will help protect our home planet. The asteroid initiative brings together the best of NASA's science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve President Obama's goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025.

Launched in December 2009 to look for the glow of celestial heat sources from asteroids, stars and galaxies, WISE made about 7,500 images every day during its primary mission, from January 2010 to February 2011. As part of a project called NEOWISE, the spacecraft made the most accurate survey to date of NEOs. NASA turned most of WISE's electronics off when it completed its primary mission.

"The data collected by NEOWISE two years ago have proven to be a gold mine for the discovery and characterization of the NEO population," said Lindley Johnson, NASA's NEOWISE program executive in Washington. "It is important that we accumulate as much of this type of data as possible while the WISE spacecraft remains a viable asset."

Because asteroids reflect but do not emit visible light, infrared sensors are a powerful tool for discovering, cataloging and understanding the asteroid population. Depending on an object's reflectivity, or albedo, a small, light-colored space rock can look the same as a big, dark one. As a result, data collected with optical telescopes using visible light can be deceiving.

During 2010, NEOWISE observed about 158,000 rocky bodies out of approximately 600,000 known objects. Discoveries included 21 comets, more than 34,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and 135 near-Earth objects.

The WISE prime mission was to scan the entire celestial sky in infrared light. It captured more than 2.7 million images in multiple infrared wavelengths and cataloged more than 560 million objects in space, ranging from galaxies faraway to asteroids and comets much closer to Earth.

"The team is ready and after a quick checkout, we're going to hit the ground running," said Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "NEOWISE not only gives us a better understanding of the asteroids and comets we study directly, but it will help us refine our concepts and mission operation plans for future, space-based near-Earth object cataloging missions."

JPL manages WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. The mission is part of NASA's Explorers Program, which NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages. The Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the science instrument. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., built the spacecraft. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

St. Patrick's Day Google Doodle Features Animated Dancers

2013-03-17T10:59:00.001-07:00

Google is celebrating St. Patrick's Day with an animated homepage doodle that features six Irish dancers.
The dancers are outfitted in traditional Irish step dance costumes, each of which feature one letter from the Google logo. They are dancing in unison, including a high-flying jump.

Last year's St. Patrick's Day doodle channeled the Book of Kells, a 9th-century gospel manuscript. The Book of Kells, currently housed in the Old Library at Dublin's Trinity College, is believed to have been created around the year 800 in the monastery at Kells, County Meath after a Viking raid forced the Columban monks to abandon a monastery on the island of Iona, just off the west coast of Scotland.

Today's holiday, meanwhile, celebrates St. Patrick, who lived during the fifth century and is the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland. As noted by History.com, he is known for bringing Christianity to the people of Ireland, and his legend has taken on mythic proportions.

"Perhaps the most well known legend is that he explained the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) using the three leaves of a native Irish clover, the shamrock," History.com said.

Interestingly, however, the first St. Patrick's Day parade was actually held in the U.S. in 1762 in New York City, a tradition that continues today. This year's parade was held on Saturday, and featured Grand Marshal John E. Smith, the great-grandson of Al Smith, former New York governor

Higgs boson find may spell doom for universe

2013-02-19T08:45:00.003-08:00

A subatomic particle discovered last year that may be the long-sought Higgs boson might doom our universe to an unfortunate end, researchers say.

The mass of the particle, which was uncovered at the world's largest particle accelerator — the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva — is a key ingredient in a calculation that portends the future of space and time.

"This calculation tells you that many tens of billions of years from now there'll be a catastrophe," Joseph Lykken, a theoretical physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., said Monday, Feb. 18, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"It may be the universe we live in is inherently unstable, and at some point billions of years from now it's all going to get wiped out," added Lykken, a collaborator on one of the LHC's experiments.

The Higgs boson particle is a manifestation of an energy field pervading the universe called the Higgs field, which is thought to explain why particles have mass. After searching for decades for proof that this field and particle existed, physicists at the LHC announced in July 2012 that they'd discovered a new particle whose properties strongly suggest it is the Higgs boson.

To confirm the particle's identity for sure, more data are needed. But many scientists say they're betting it's the Higgs.

"This discovery to me was personally astounding," said I. Joseph Kroll, a University of Pennsylvania physicist who also works at the LHC. "To me, the Higgs was sort of, it might be there, it might not. The fact that it's there is really a tremendous accomplishment.

And finding the Higgs, if it's truly been found, not only confirms the theory about how particles get mass, but it allows scientists to make new calculations that weren't possible before the particle's properties were known.

For example, the mass of the new particle is about 126 billion electron volts, or about 126 times the mass of the proton. If that particle really is the Higgs, its mass turns out to be just about what's needed to make the universe fundamentally unstable, in a way that would cause it to end catastrophically in the far future.
That's because the Higgs field is thought to be everywhere, so it affects the vacuum of empty space-time in the universe.

"The mass of the Higgs is related to how stable the vacuum is," explained Christopher Hill, a theoretical physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. "It's right along the critical line. That could either be a cosmic coincidence, or it could be that there's some physics that's causing that. That's something new, which we didn't know before."

Google Animated Doodle Celebrates Copernicus' Birthday

2013-02-19T08:43:00.001-08:00

Google may be at the center of the search universe, but today's Google Doodle celebrates a man who taught the world, "You're not at the center of the universe."

Born Feb. 19, 1473, Nicolaus Copernicus was a mathematician and astronomer, best known for his heliocentric model which placed the Sun, and not the earth, at the center of our cosmos.
Copernicus' book "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) is considered to be one of the most important works in the history of science, sparking the Copernican revolution and changing our view of the universe.

Today's Google Doodle is an animated view of the Copernican model of the universe, with the Sun at its center and other planets orbiting around it.

How do you like today's Doodle? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Image courtesy of Google

NASA: Alarming Water Loss in Middle East

2013-02-15T08:23:00.003-08:00

An amount of freshwater almost the size of the Dead Sea has been lost in parts of the Middle East due to poor management, increased demands for groundwater and the effects of a 2007 drought, according to a NASA study.

The study, to be published Friday in Water Resources Research, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, examined data over seven years from 2003 from a pair of gravity-measuring satellites which is part of NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment or GRACE. Researchers found freshwater reserves in parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran along the Tigris and Euphrates river basins had lost 117 million acre feet (144 cubic kilometers) of its total stored freshwater, the second fastest loss of groundwater storage loss after India.

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About 60 percent of the loss resulted from pumping underground reservoirs for ground water, including 1,000 wells in Iraq, and another fifth was due to impacts of the drought including declining snow packs and soil drying up. Loss of surface water from lakes and reservoirs accounted for about another fifth of the decline, the study found.

"This rate of water loss is among the largest liquid freshwater losses on the continents," the authors wrote in the study, noting the declines were most obvious after a drought.

The study is the latest evidence of a worsening water crisis in the Middle East, where demands from growing populations, war and the worsening effects of climate change are raising the prospect that some countries could face sever water shortages in the decades to come. Some like impoverished Yemen blame their water woes on the semi-arid conditions and the grinding poverty while the oil-rich Gulf faces water shortages mostly due to the economic boom that has created glistening cities out of the desert.

In a report released during the U.N. climate talks in Qatar, the World Bank concluded among the most critical problems in the Middle East and North Africa will be worsening water shortages. The region already has the lowest amount of freshwater in the world. With climate change, droughts in the region are expected to turn more extreme, water runoff is expected to decline 10 percent by 2050 while demand for water is expected to increase 60 percent by 2045.

One of the biggest challenges to improving water conservation is often competing demands which has worsened the problem in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins.

Turkey controls the Tigris and Euphrates headwaters, as well as the reservoirs and infrastructure of Turkey's Greater Anatolia Project, which dictates how much water flows downstream into Syria and Iraq, the researchers said. With no coordinated water management between the three countries, tensions have intensified since the 2007 drought because Turkey continues to divert water to irrigate farmland.

"That decline in stream flow put a lot of pressure on northern Iraq," Kate Voss, lead author of the study and a water policy fellow with the University of California's Center for Hydrological Modeling in Irvine, said. "Both the UN and anecdotal reports from area residents note that once stream flow declined, this northern region of Iraq had to switch to groundwater. In an already fragile social, economic and political environment, this did not help the situation."

Jay Famiglietti, principle investigator of the new study and a hydrologist and UC Irvine professor of Earth System Science, plans to visit the region later this month, along with Voss and two other UC Irvine colleagues, to discuss their findings and raise awareness of the problem and the need for a regional approach to solve the problem.

"They just do not have that much water to begin with, and they're in a part of the world that will be experiencing less rainfall with climate change," Famiglietti said. "Those dry areas are getting dryer. They and everyone else in the world's arid regions need to manage their available water resources as best they can."

Russian meteor likely unconnected to asteroid flyby

2013-02-15T08:20:00.002-08:00

A Russian meteor blast that has reportedly injured more than 500 people appears unconnected to the flyby Friday of an asteroid passing close to Earth, according to astronomers.

The 13-story-size asteroid, 2012 DA14, passes within 17,100 miles of Earth around 2:24 p.m. ET on Friday before heading off into space. The Russian meteor, likely about the size of a sports utility vehicle and weighing perhaps 11 tons, struck Russia's Chelyabinsk region, about 900 miles east of Moscow late Thursday, according to news reports.

"The Earth travels about a million miles in a day and these are two events separated by almost 24 hours, so it is unlikely they are connected," says asteroid expert Richard Binzel of MIT. Meteors the size of the Russian one hit Earth every few years, Binzel says, but land near inhabited places much less often. "We just have the incredible coincidence of this happening just before the asteroid flies by," Binzel says.

Further, the Russian meteor landed in the Northern hemisphere while Asteroid 2012 DA14 is approaching from the direction of the South Pole, arguing against a connection. The damage in Chelyabinsk, reportedly broken windows, was caused by the air pressure wave created when the meteor zoomed into the Earth's atmosphere at perhaps 33,000 mph.

"It's nice of Nature to give us the full spectrum of possibilities," Binzel says. Astronomers will want to recover whatever pieces of the Russian meteor remain for study in the lab. The space rocks are thought to be leftovers from the era of the Earth's formation.

Spin the Ferris Wheels of Love With Today’s Google Doodle

2013-02-14T08:58:00.000-08:00

Today’s Google Doodle.

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I love it when the Google Doodles do really fun mash-ups, and on today, the day of love, they’ve come up with a doozy. Not only is today Valentine’s Day, but it’s also the birthday of George Ferris, inventor of the Ferris Wheel; certainly a place where a fair share of romance has been exercised.
The doodle is actually a fun little game of spin-the-wheel. There are two Ferris Wheels, and when you press the heart-shaped button, both spin until two of the riders are matched up. The riders are all anthropomorphized (and cute) animals, and based on each pairing we are presented with an cartoon as to how their date might go. Since there are 8 riders on each wheel, there should be 64 possible outcomes, so it’s possible to spend some time on this doodle. I haven’t watch them all yet, but I’m still pulling for the
Octopus to find true love.
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Not the best result, from today’s Google Doodle.

If you click through the magnifying glass symbol on the doodle, you’ll be taken to comprehensive biographical info on George Ferris, and learn all about this multi-talented civil engineer who invented the most romantic ride at every theme park in the world. Happy Valentine’s Day, and Happy Birthday to George Ferris!
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Earth to narrowly escape collision with asteroid 150 feet wide Friday

2013-02-14T08:47:00.004-08:00

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Via Reuters: The passage of asteroid 2012 DA14 through the Earth-moon system, is depicted in this handout image from NASA. On February 15, 2013, an asteroid, 150 feet (45 meters) in diameter will pass close, but safely, by Earth. The flyby creates a unique opportunity for researchers to observe and learn more about asteroids. (NASA)

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Early Friday afternoon (2:24 p.m. EST), planet Earth will be buzzed by an asteroid some 150 feet wide, identified as 2012 DA14, as it intersects Earth’s orbit just 17,500 miles above our heads.

According to NASA, this is the closest documented encounter of an asteroid this large (excluding ones which actually smashed into the Earth). While this might not seem at first even a close miss, on the cosmic scale of the solar system, it certainly qualifies as a very close call.

Only last December a somewhat smaller asteroid, XE54, passed within about 140,000 miles of Earth, and was about as close to crashing into Earth as an asteroid can without actually doing so.

(Note: For perspective, a relatively simple calculation shows that DA14’s closest approach corresponds proportionately to two commercial aircraft approaching to within about 150 feet of one another. That is far below FAA requirements for the minimum safe horizontal separation between airliners - 3 to 10 miles. There is little doubt that coming as close as 150 feet, which is less than the wingspan of even most mid-sized commercial passenger planes, is as close one can imagine without having a disastrous mid-air collision.)

The path of asteroid 2012 DA14's approach to earth is shown in this handout graphic from NASA obtained by Reuters February 8, 2013. The 50-metre in diameter asteroid will pass inside the Earth's geosynchronous orbit, reaching its closest point February 15, 2013. Scientists say there is no danger of it hitting the earth. (NASA - REUTERS)

Several recent asteroids have come closer than DA14 but were much smaller (tens of feet in size). And, when it comes to the consequences of an Earth-asteroid collision, size really matters.

The smallest asteroids (better described as large rocks) to threaten Earth most likely would burn up in the atmosphere creating eye-opening fireballs racing across the sky, possibly with some fragments (referred to as meteorites) reaching the ground. (Note, by comparison, the “shooting stars” seen annually in association with meteor showers are typically pebble sized).

Meteor Crater (NASA) An asteroid the size of DA14 is capable of blasting a crater - with the equivalent of hundreds of Hiroshima atomic bombs – like the one mile wide hole known as Meteor Crater blasted into the ground 50 thousand years ago in Arizona.

Just 105 years ago (June, 1908) a 300 foot asteroid (or comet comprised of mostly water ice rather than hard rock) exploded over the Tunguska River in Siberia\ with more power than anything before or since (including thermo-nuclear hydrogen bombs) in recorded history. Thousands of square miles of territory were devastated, but the only victims were trees and wild life.

An equivalent strike today near a metropolitan area would obviously cause tremendous damage and take a terrible toll on life and societal infrastructure. However, it’s much more likely that the asteroid would either produce a big splash (and possible tidal waves) somewhere over the vastness of earth’s oceans, or create a humongous bang (and possible earthquakes) over some relatively large and sparsely populated land mass. In either case, though, the event would not wipe out humanity.

Scientists believe that any space rock larger than about 1 kilometer (.62 mile) across could cause a global catastrophe. The asteroid which led to the mass extinction of dinosaurs 75 million years ago was about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) wide.

“Extinction event” asteroid collisions appear highly improbable (but possible) on time scales less than millions of years. But objects larger than about 100 feet like DA14 are believed to strike Earth every few hundred years. At this time there are no known asteroids of this size on a collision course with Earth for at least 100 years.

What’s of interest and concern, however, is that scientists believe there are literally tens to hundreds of thousands of objects, mostly with dimensions in the hundreds of feet, whizzing around in space that have not yet been discovered. Consider the fact that XE54 was first observed only the day before its closest approach. Even though it has been crossing Earth’s orbit about once per year for millennia, DA14 was discovered less than one year ago.

(Note: the discovery of DA14 reads like the opening of a SciFi movie. Last February, a young dental surgeon sailing along the Mediterranean coast of Spain just happened to spot a speck of light moving across the sky in images on his laptop from an observatory several hundred miles away. He alerted the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Telescopes around the world then began determining the previously unknown object’s orbit placed it on a near–collision with the Earth.)

For the foreseeable future, then, Earth will continue to reside in a cosmic shooting gallery with an enormous number of currently unknown objects, some of which may have a direct bead on us without our knowing. While it is probably much more unlikely than likely, a potentially disastrous collision with an asteroid of at least the dimensions comparable to DA14 could occur anytime possibly with little or no warning in our lifetimes.

Over the next decade or so, ongoing and proposed (but not yet approved and/or funded) improvements in earth and space-based asteroid monitoring capabilities should (could) reduce the number of possible close encounters of the asteroid kind. For example, most of the sky seen from the southern hemisphere is currently unobserved by asteroid watchers. However this void is expected to be at least partially filled in 2019 by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) on Cerro Pachón Mountain in Chile.

Because ground-based telescopes can operate only at night, objects coming from the direction of the sun cannot be monitored. Only space-based platforms can overcome this problem. Despite a recent United Nations meeting of experts designed to review issues and discuss plans for the future, the only hard and potentially realistic proposal on the books comes from a non-profit charitable organization organized by notable scientists and two former NASA astronauts. All well and good, except the project depends upon contributions to move forward.

(Note: the company is also planning to mine asteroids for minerals and water for future manned exploration of space. While it’s not feasible to return very much of an asteroids resources back to Earth, it’s estimated that, if it were possible, the value of the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter amounts to the equivalent of about 100 billion dollars for every person on Earth today!)

Suppose we were able to spot an asteroid on a trajectory that threatens Earth. What, if anything, could be done to avoid a potential disaster? The answer depends mostly on how much advance warning is available, especially for a potential “extinction event” sized object. Without advanced planning and defenses of some sort in place (not likely, politically and economically speaking), estimates are that it would take 10-20 years to spin up and effectively implement an operational system and strategy. As discussed previously, this would most likely take the form of deflecting the asteroid from its trajectory by gradually bumping (“nudging”) it with a robot space vehicle.

(Science fiction author Larry Niven is quoted as saying:“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don’t have a space program, it’ll serve us right!” If dinosaurs had been able to divert the killer asteroid, we wouldn’t be around to contemplate the event.)

If we were threatened by the more common mid-sized asteroid like DA14, the same deflection approach could be applied, but this class of asteroid would unlikely provide adequate warning time for this bumping strategy to sufficiently alter the trajectory.

Then what? Probably just sit back and watch coverage of the awe-inspiring (not panic-generating) event on 24/7 cable TV assuming there was total confidence (never possible with weather forecasts) the asteroid would crash into the ocean (but be wary of a tsunami from the impact.)

If ground zero were a populated region for an incoming medium-sized aseroid, blowing it up with a nuclear missile is a possibility. However, this probably would result in large fragments raining down on the surface. The net result might be a more extreme hazard over a larger area than a direct hit. Either way, the scenario becomes one of evacuating the affected population and massive disaster mitigation efforts.

Dinosaur footprints lifted from NASA's backyard

2013-02-04T12:28:00.001-08:00

The dinosaur footprints were encased in a field jacket, which is much like a cast that a doctor would place on a broken arm or leg. This field jacket consisted of many layers of burlap soaked in plaster, with metal pipes added to act like splints / NASA/GSFC/Rebecca Roth

A chunk of stone bearing dinosaur footprints has been carefully lifted from the grounds of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., scientists report.

The dino tracks, thought to have been left by three separate beasts more than 100 million years ago, were discovered by amateur paleontologist Ray Stanford in August 2012.

The feature that first caught Stanford's eye was a dinner-plate-sized footprint of a nodosaur, a tanklike dinosaur studded with bony protuberances that roamed the area about 110 million years ago during the Cretaceous period (the period from 145 million to 65 million years ago that was the end of the Mesozoic Era). This particular lumbering leaf-eater must have been moving quickly across the prehistoric mud, as its heel did not sink deeply into the ground.

A closer look at the site revealed two more prints. Stephen Godfrey, a paleontology curator at the Calvert Marine Museum, who was contracted to preserve the find, said he suspects one was left by an ornithopod, possibly from the iguanodontid family, which were large vegetarian dinosaurs with birdlike, three-toed feet that walked on its hind legs. Another smaller footprint found superimposed over the nodosaur track is thought to be from a baby nodosaur, perhaps trying to catch up to its parent, according to a statement from NASA.

The stretch of ground containing the prints measured about 7 feet long and 3 feet across at its widest point. After making a silicon-rubber cast of the dino tracks, the team covered the find in plaster-soaked burlap, much like an orthopedic cast, to reinforce the slab and protect it from damage during the big move. Altogether, the stone slab, the protective jacket and surrounding soil weighed about 3,000 pounds, and it was successfully pulled out of the ground last month.

For now, the prints are being stored at Goddard until further scientific study is possible. The wonder of the discovery has not been lost on space scientists at Goddard, who often find themselves studying starlight as old as the dinosaurs.

"One of the amazing aspects of this find is that some of the starlight now seen in the night sky by astronomers was created in far-distant galaxies when these dinosaurs were walking on mud flats in Cretaceous Maryland where Goddard is now located," Jim Garvin, Goddard's chief scientist, said in a statement. "That starlight (from within the Virgo Supercluster) is only now reaching Earth after having traveled through deep space for 100 million years."

South Korea launches space rocket carrying satellite

2013-01-31T07:23:00.000-08:00

South Korea says its third attempt at launching a rocket to put a satellite in space has been a success.

The Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1) blasted off from the Naro Space Center at 16:00 (07:00 GMT).

Science Minister Lee Ju-ho said the satellite, which will collect climate data, was in its correct orbit.
The launch comes weeks after North Korea used its own three-stage rocket to place a satellite into orbit, sparking international criticism.

South Korea's 140-tonne rocket, known as Naro, was built in partnership with Russia, which had agreed to work with Seoul for three launch attempts.

Previous launches in 2009 and 2010 failed, and this attempt had been postponed twice for technical reasons.

But officials said Wednesday's launch from the site 480km (298 miles) south of Seoul had gone as planned and that the rocket had reached its target altitude and deployed its satellite.

"After analysing various data, the Naro rocket successfully put the science satellite into designated orbit," Mr Lee told reporters. He said the satellite had detached 540 seconds after launch.

"We now have leapt up a step to become a space-power nation," he said, adding that South Korea would use this "overwhelming moment as a strong, dynamic force" to help drive an independent space programme.

The satellite, called Science and Technology Satellite-2C, is designed to collect climate data. The Yonhap news said it was expected to make contact with its ground station at 05:00 on Thursday, at which point its operators will be able to make the final judgement on whether the launch achieved its goals.
South Korea does already have satellites in space, but they were launched from other countries.

On its first attempt to carry out a launch on its own soil, in 2009, the satellite failed to detach from the rocket in orbit. In 2010, the rocket exploded seconds after take-off.

Pressure for success has increased since North Korea launched a rocket that placed a satellite in orbit on 12 December. It followed the launch by announcing plans for a "high-level nuclear test" and more long-range rocket launches.

The UN said the North Korean launch constituted a banned test of missile technology and voted to extend sanctions against Pyongyang. There have been international calls for Pyongyang not to carry out the nuclear test.

Scientists redefine ‘habitable zone;’ Earth booted out of ‘Goldilocks zone’

2013-01-30T14:00:00.003-08:00

Researchers from Penn State University have redefined the “habitable zone” for exoplanets. Interestingly, this new definition has delivered a major hit to Earth’s habitability rating.

An updated model for identifying whether newly discovered exoplanets fall within a habitable zone has been created by the Penn State Department of Geosciences team using the latest data, according to a news release from Penn State. The updated model will help researchers tasked with combing the galaxy for planets that could be capable of having liquid water and sustaining life.

According to the research team, their work is based on a prior model developed by James Kasting, Evan Pugh Professor of Geoscience at Penn State. The updated model will offer researchers a more accurate calculation of where habitable zones around a star can be found.

Comparing new data from the updated model to old estimates made by the previous model, researchers discovered that habitable zones are actually farther away from the stars than previously thought.
“This has implications for finding other planets with life on them,” said Ravi kumar Kopparapu, a lead investigator on the study, in a statement.

For the study, Kopparapu and graduate student Ramses Ramirez used updated absorption databases of greenhouse gases. The databases have more precise information on water and carbon dioxide than previously was available and let the researchers create new estimates from the innovative model Kasting developed 20 years ago.

With the help of super computers at Penn State and the University of Washington, researchers were able to calculate habitable zones around other stars. They note that in Kasting’s model, water and carbon dioxide were not being absorbed as strongly, so the model estimated that the planets had to be closer to the star to be in the habitable zone.

Some planets thought to be in habitable zones may actually be outside the habitable zone, according to estimates from the updated model.

Researchers believe that the model could be used to determine whether any of the planets spotted by the NASA Kepler mission are within a habitable zone. For example, the Kepler missions has already discovered more than 2,000 exoplanets that could be examined.

The new model is expected to help scientists in Penn State’s Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics with the development of their Habitable Zone Planet Finder. The precision spectrograph will help the team discover Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way that could hold liquid water.

The new model could also help researchers using the Terrestrial Planet Finder telescopes, which would point users of the giant telescopes in the right direction for finding exoplanets.

The updated model nearly boots the Earth’s orbit out of the new “Goldilocks zone,” according to Geekosystem. The website says that the Goldilocks zone is a narrow belt around a star where an orbiting planet would be warm enough to support life. Of course, the Earth doesn’t have to be in the center of the habitable zone to support life, that location is simply where the best conditions for sustaining life can be found.

According to the New Scientist, while Earth used to be right in the middle of our Sun’s habitable zone, it is now approximately a million kilometers away from the warm edge.

Before you consider packing up your bags and finding another planet, keep in mind that the updated model doesn’t take into consideration feedback from clouds, which reflect radiation away from the Earth and stabilize the climate. In other words, the clouds are keeping the Earth from being overheated.

The study’s findings were recently published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Lowly Dung Beetles Are Insect Astronomers

2013-01-24T14:55:00.004-08:00

Even the humble dung beetle, its life spent barely an inch above the ground, pushing balls of waste, steers by starlight.

This unsuspected navigational mechanism, described Jan. 24 in Current Biology, is likely not limited to the Scarabaeus satyrus examined by the researchers.

Peering through compound eyes into the darkness of night, insects around the world may be guided by stars.

'It's just another example of how wonderful the animal kingdom is.'

“It’s just another example of how wonderful the animal kingdom is, how the most amazing things have evolved,” said biologist Eric Warrant of Sweden’s Lund University, a co-author on the study.

Warrant has studied insect vision for nearly three decades, specializing in the systems used by dung beetles, that taxonomic superfamily of more than 5,000 species, found on every continent but Antarctica and quietly responsible for processing much of the animal world’s waste.

During the daytime, dung beetles use the sun’s position as a point of reference. At night, they variously orient themselves by the moon’s bright light or, if the disk is obscured by clouds, by patterns of polarized light in faint moonbeams.

Sometimes the moon is not visible at all, however, and dung beetles don’t use landmarks to orient themselves, raising the question of how they steer in these situations.

Warrant and study leader Marie Dacke, also a Lund University biologist, suspected that they used starlight — an obvious cue, but not one often considered relevant to insect navigation. Indeed, only birds, seals and humans have been proven to steer with stars, with humpback whales and southern cricket frogs as other likely candidates.

To test the notion, Dacke and Warrant analyzed the paths of S. satyrus rolling dung balls inside a circular, high-walled arena on a moonless, starry night.

When the arena was uncovered, the beetles moved in straight lines, as is their instinctive wont. When the arena was covered, however, hiding the stars that were their only possible point of reference, the beetles wandered back and forth in circuitous, seemingly confused routes.

Paths taken by dung beetles able to see the starry sky (left) and with their view of the sky blocked (right). Image: Dacke et al./Current Biology

“They always roll straight. If they don’t roll straight, something is wrong,” said Warrant. “They have to get away from the dung pile as fast as possible, or the balls they roll will be stolen by other beetles.”
The researchers then repeated the experiment inside the Johannesburg planetarium, with the night sky’s constellations projected upon its domed ceiling. Once again, the beetles aimed true if they could see the stars, and wandered in confusion without them.

Dung beetle eyes are not strong enough to discern individual stars, “but they can see the bright streak of light that the Milky Way forms in the sky,” said Dacke.

Warrant speculates that many other insects, especially those that travel long distances at night, also steer by starlight, an ability that would likely have been favored by natural selection over evolutionary time.

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Asked why he studies such an esoteric subject, Warrant noted that the insights gained from dung beetles could have utilitarian benefits — he owns a startup company that uses algorithms derived from nocturnal insect sight to process low-light images — though the simple beauty of fact is a justification in itself.

“It seems fantastic to us,” he said of the dung beetles’ astronomical ability. “It’s nothing we take for granted. It’s something we take for amazing every day we work with them.”

Warrant is also studying a how a certain species of Panamanian bee flies hundreds of feet in pitch-darkness through nighttime jungle, never once bumping into so much as a leaf, finding their hollowed-out stick homes without fail.
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“How they do this is still a mystery,” he said.

World's largest Optical Telescope to be developed by Five-Nation Consortium

2013-01-23T07:39:00.000-08:00

New image from ESA’s Herschel space observatory has revealed multiple arcs around Betelgeuse, the nearest red supergiant star to Earth, and scientists analysing the image have suggested that the star and its arc-shaped shields could collide with an intriguing dusty ‘wall’ in 5000 years.

Betelgeuse rides on the shoulder of the constellation Orion the Hunter. It can easily be seen with the naked eye in the northern hemisphere winter night sky as the orange-red star above and to the left of Orion’s famous three-star belt.

Roughly 1,000 times the diameter of our Sun and shining 100,000 times more brightly, Betelgeuse’s impressive statistics come with a cost.

For this star is likely on its way to a spectcular supernova explosion, having already swelled into a red supergiant and shed a significant fraction of its outer layers.

The new far-infrared view from Herschel shows how the star’s winds are crashing against the surrounding interstellar medium, creating a bow shock as the star moves through space at speeds of around 30 km/s.
A series of broken, dusty arcs ahead of the star’s direction of motion testify to a turbulent history of mass loss.

Closer to the star itself, an inner envelope of material shows a pronounced asymmetric structure. Large convective cells in the star’s outer atmosphere have likely resulted in localized, clumpy ejections of dusty debris at different stages in the past.

An intriguing linear structure is also seen further away from the star, beyond the dusty arcs. While some earlier theories proposed that this bar was a result of material ejected during a previous stage of stellar evolution, analysis of the new image suggests that it is either a linear filament linked to the galaxy’s magnetic field, or the edge of a nearby interstellar cloud that is being illuminated by Betelgeuse.

If the bar is a completely separate object, then taking into account the motion of Betelgeuse and its arcs and the separation between them and the bar, the outermost arc will collide with the bar in just 5,000 years, with the red supergiant star itself hitting the bar roughly 12,500 years later.

Nintendo adds classic titles to the Wii U with GamePad Support, starting this spring

2013-01-23T07:33:00.006-08:00

During the Nintendo Direct event this morning, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata talked about the upcoming ‘Wii U Virtual Console’ and how titles will be priced, and played. Here are the details.

Nintendo already eluded to the fact that they were bringing classic Nintendo titles from the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Super Nintendo onto the Wii U earlier this year. Today Iwata was prepared to discuss the venture with more details. Starting this spring, Nintendo will bring NES and SNES titles onto the Wii U after a spring Wii U update. This will allow classic titles to be playable both on the Wii U through a TV or on just the GamePad controller.

There was great news for previous Virtual Console customers, all of the titles that you purchased on the Wii will be heavily discounted if you want to play them on the Wii U. Nintendo stated that NES games will be priced between $4.99 and $5.99 but will only cost previous Virtual Console customers $1. If you are more interested in SNES games, they will be priced between $7.99 and $8.99 and will only cost $1.50 if you had the game on the Wii Virtual Console.

Mars: 'Strongest evidence' planet may have supported life, scientists say

2013-01-23T07:27:00.003-08:00

Minerals found underground on Mars are the "strongest evidence yet" that the planet may have supported life, according to new research.

The team, led by the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Aberdeen, said the ingredients for life could have been in a zone up to 5km down for much of the planet's history.

They used data from the US space agency (Nasa) and European Space Agency (Esa).

Nature Geoscience has published the research.

Joseph Michalski Natural History Museum The team said the research backed up the existing theory that Mars could have supported life due to micro-organisms hidden beneath the surface.

They said that when meteorites strike the surface of Mars, they act as natural probes, bringing up rocks from far below.

The McLaughlin Crater is described as one such area of interest in the study.

Dr Joseph Michalski, lead author and planetary geologist at the Natural History Museum, said: "We don't know how life on Earth formed but it is conceivable that it originated underground, protected from harsh surface conditions that existed on early Earth.

"However, the early geological record of Earth is poorly preserved so we may never know what processes led to life's origin and early evolution.

"Whether the Martian geologic record contains life or not, analysis of these types of rocks would certainly teach us a tremendous amount about early chemical processes in the solar system.

"In this paper, we present a strong case for exploring the subsurface, as well as the surface.

"But I don't personally think we should try to drill into the subsurface to look for ancient life. Instead, we can study rocks that are naturally brought to the surface by meteor impact and search in deep basins where fluids have come to the surface."

'Be clever'

Co-author Prof John Parnell, geochemist at the University of Aberdeen, added: "This research has demonstrated how studies of Earth and Mars depend on each other.

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"It is what we have observed of microbes living below the continents and oceans of Earth. They allow us to speculate on habitats for past life on Mars, which in turn show us how life on the early Earth could have survived.

"We know from Earth's history that planets face traumatic conditions such as meteorite bombardment and ice ages, when the survival of life may depend on being well-below ground.

"So it makes sense to search for evidence of life from that subsurface environment, in the geological records of both Earth and Mars.

"But it's one thing to do that on Earth - we need to be clever in finding a way to do it on Mars."

NASA Sends Mona Lisa to the Moon on a Laser Ride

2013-01-22T13:49:00.000-08:00

Man-in-the-Moon, meet humankind's most enigmatic Earthly smile, courtesy of NASA.
The U.S. space agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) scientists this week beamed an image of the Mona Lisa from Earth to the Moon-orbiting spacecraft's Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument, NASA said Thursday.
Calling the feat "the first anyone has achieved one-way laser communication at planetary distances," LOLA principal investigator David Smith of MIT said, "In the near future, this type of simple laser communication might serve as a backup for the radio communication that satellites use. In the more distant future, it may allow communication at higher data rates than present radio links can provide."
NASA researchers sent the digital image of Leonardo da Vinci's iconic painting nearly 240,000 miles from its Next Generation Satellite Laser Ranging (NGSLR) station at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. to the LRO.

Doing so required the LOLA team to break up the Mona Lisa image into a 152 pixel-by-200 pixel array, with each pixel "converted into a shade of gray, represented by a number between zero and 4,095" and transmitted individually by laser pulse, LOLA scientist Xiaoli Sun said.

"Because LRO is already set up to receive laser signals through the LOLA instrument, we had a unique opportunity to demonstrate one-way laser communication with a distant satellite," Sun added.

The LOLA team was able to transmit the image "at a data rate of about 300 bits per second," NASA said. The Mona Lisa image actually piggybacked on routine laser pulses sent to the LRO and sending it didn't interfere "with LOLA's primary task of mapping the moon's elevation and terrain and NGSLR's primary task of tracking" the lunar satellite, according to the space agency.

The Mona Lisa, an oil on a poplar wood panel measuring just 30 inches by 21 inches, is arguably the most famous work of art in existence. Though its subject has been debated by art historians, it is believed to be a portrait of Lisa Gheradini, a Florentine woman in her mid-20s when she sat for Da Vinci around the turn of the 16th century.

Over the centuries, the painting has been stolen and recovered, reframed and given extensive preservation treatments, parodied, replicated, and served up as plot point in novels. It currently resides in the Louvre in Paris.

For more, check out NASA's video explaining how it tramsmitted the Mona Lisa to the LRO below.

Black hole collision may have irradiated Earth in eighth century

2013-01-21T13:28:00.003-08:00

Black hole collision may have irradiated Earth in eighth century

A powerful gamma ray burst caused by a collision of two black holes or neutron stars may have irradiated the Earth in the eighth century, researchers claim.

The crashing together of the two bodies could have released an intense burst of energy in the form of gamma rays lasting as little as two seconds

A study last year found unusually high levels of the isotope carbon-14 in ancient rings of Japanese cedar trees and a corresponding spike in beryllium-10 in Antarctic ice.

The readings were traced back to a point in AD 774 or 775, suggesting that during that period the Earth was hit by an intense burst of radiation, but researchers were initially unable to determine its cause.

Now a separate team of astronomers have suggested it could have been due to the collision of two compact stellar remnants such as black holes, neutron stars or white dwarfs.

The crashing together and subsequent merger of the two bodies could have released an intense burst of energy in the form of gamma rays lasting as little as two seconds, they said.

It could have caused significant damage to ecosystems at the time but would be much more noticeable if it hit the Earth today, with the potential to bring down electronic systems across the globe.

Dr Ralph Neuhauser of the University of Jena in Germany said: "If the gamma-ray burst had been much closer to the Earth it would have caused significant harm to the biosphere.
"But even thousands of light-years away, a similar event today could cause havoc with the sensitive electronic systems that advanced societies have come to depend on.
"The challenge now is to establish how rare such carbon-14 spikes are, i.e., how often such radiation bursts hit the Earth. In the last 3,000 years, the maximum age of trees alive today, only one such event appears to have taken place."
When the high radiation levels were initially discovered researchers were unsure of its origin, although they ruled out a nearby supernova (the explosion of a massive star) because there is no mention of one in the historical record.
Some experts highlighted an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which refers to a "red crucifix" seen in the night sky, but this occurred in 776 – a year too late – and does not explain why no remnants of the event have since been detected by astronomers.
The new explanation by Dr Neuhauser and his co-author Valeri Hambaryan proposes that the radiation was emitted after an enormously powerful explosion which happened within the Milky Way when two compact stellar remnants collided.
In contrast to longer bursts of gamma radiation which are commonly witnessed in other galaxies, the short burst proposed by the researchers may have emitted no visible light, meaning it could have gone totally unnoticed at the time.
Writing in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal they explained that the explosion most likely happened between 3,000 and 12,000 light years from the Sun.
A closer collision would have led to the extinction of some life on Earth, but at such a distance the vast majority of the radiation would have been absorbed by the atmosphere, leaving only traces which were preserved in trees and ice, they said.

It's life, but not as we know it - Red Plant

2013-01-21T13:23:00.003-08:00

Martian minerals 'strongest evidence yet' of life on the red planet - and it could still be there

Red Planet could have hosted microorganisms
McLaughlin Crater holds traces of water altered minerals
Findings could reveal clues about life on Earth

Martians may well have existed, and still be on the red planet - but not in any recognisable form, British scientists said today.
Scientists believe the discovery of minerals below the Red Planet's surface is the 'strongest evidence yet' it may have supported life.
But far from hosting little green men, our celestial neighbour was likely inhabited by simple microorganisms.

The huge McLaughlin Crater created by a meteorite which smashed into the surface of Mars, has been shown to reveal signs of life

Layers with Carbonate Content Inside McLaughlin Crater on Mars This view of layered rocks on the floor of McLaughlin Crater shows sedimentary rocks that contain spectroscopic evidence for minerals formed through interaction with water

Scientists at the University of Aberdeen looked at data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and ESA's Mars Express spacecrafts and analysed rocks and found they contain clays and minerals whose chemical make-up has been altered by water

Lifeless: This image provided by NASA shows the late-afternoon shadow cast by the Mars rover Opportunity

A new study led by the Natural History Museum, with the University of Aberdeen, found that all the ingredients for life were present just below the planet's surface for much of its history.
When meteorites strike the surface of Mars, they act like natural probes, bringing up rocks from far beneath the crust.
Looking at data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and ESA's Mars Express spacecrafts, they analysed rocks and found they contain clays and minerals whose chemical make-up has been altered by water.

Go fishing! Scientists amazed by ancient river on Mars

2013-01-18T11:30:00.003-08:00

Mars is still an amazing planet, but billions of years ago, it must have been something even more remarkable. The Mars Express spacecraft has produced a stunning new image of a massive riverbed that was once filled with water providing more evidence of the rich, and watery history of the Red Planet.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Scientists are very interested in Mars for two reasons. First, the planet was once wet with large quantities of water flowing over the surface, but today it appears to be much drier. Certainly, nearly all of the surface water is gone, both evaporating into space and seeping into the frozen ground. What little remains is locked in the polar caps and in pockets of underground ice. Why this happened, and what are the implications for Earth is an important question, if we can answer this, then we can better understand the Earth.

The second reason is to ask if Mars can support human colonization sometime in the future. If water still exists on Mars, then where can it be found and can it be extracted to support colonization? It is thought by scientists that at some point, the future of humanity lies amongst the stars. To prepare the way, pioneering work must be done. This is part of that work.

Incidentally, the search for life is more of a secondary quest, with the best hopes being that some form of microbial life once existed on the planet during its warmer, wetter past. However, the likelihood of such a discovery varies from virtually nil to almost certain depending on which scientists are asked and their perspective on the data. Nonetheless, this is not the primary focus on Mars.

The great "river-like structure" as scientists describe the canyon in the image, is Reull Vallis, a broad, dry river flanked by ancient bluffs. Measurements suggest the river would have been 4 miles wide and as much as 1,000 feet deep, meandering for 900 miles before empyting into the vast primeval Hellas basin.

The river, like any other on Earth, was fed by smaller tributaries, which also appear in the high-resolution photographs. They also say the region shows evidence that it was once covered with glaciers.

Water likely flowed though Reull Vallis somewhere around 3.5 to 1.8 billion years ago, before Mars finally became a dry planet. Mars didn't become dry all at once, but gradually lost its surface moisture and became cold over a long period spanning millions to billions of years. Why this happened remains a mystery.

For scientists, seeing that Mars had a more Earth-like climate than previously thought encourages them to redouble their research. Dedicated as ever, they hope to decipher to the silent testament of Mars's dry rivers and to learn what they have to say about Earth's future.

Mars Rover Ready to Dig In

2013-01-17T08:09:00.003-08:00

After months of trial runs, NASA's Curiosity rover is ready to scratch the surface of Mars, positioning itself this week to drill into the crust of the red planet and wildcat for evidence of life for the first time.

NASA's Curiosity rover is ready to scratch the surface of Mars. What do scientists expect to find, and what challenges lie ahead for the mission? Robert Lee Hotz reports on The News Hub. Photo: AP.

After months of tests, NASA's Curiosity rover is settling down to the serious business of planetary exploration, positioning itself to drill into the crust of the red planet for the first time. WSJ's Robert Lee Hotz reports.

Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said Tuesday that they have targeted a fine-grained fractured slab of bedrock for the rover's first drilling attempt—a tricky procedure made all the more difficult by the complexities of the rover.
In a milestone for planetary exploration, researchers expect to extract and remotely analyze a mineral sample from the interior of Mars beginning in about two weeks. Scientists hope the specimen—its chemistry unsullied by the harsh surface conditions—will reveal whether conditions on the cold, arid world were once favorable for life.
"We will go into the sequence of rocks that are the brightest prospects for telling us about the early habitability of Mars," said mission project scientist John Grotzinger at the California Institute of Technology. "We are at a very sweet spot to do that."
The spacecraft voyaged 352 million miles to reach Mars this past August, but its next critical step will be measured in fractions of an inch. The rover's drill can chip about 2 inches into the interior of Mars to extract a small spoonful of powdered rock for analysis in an onboard chemistry kit. The effort may take six weeks or more. Researchers want to ensure the rock won't break the drill bit and that the mineral sample won't be contaminated by machinery as the rover scoops it onboard.
"Drilling into a rock to collect a sample will be this mission's most challenging activity since the landing. It has never been done on Mars," said Mars Science Laboratory project manager Richard Cook.
In the months since Curiosity's landing, the mission has mostly generated waves of rumor about life-related chemistry on the distant world that, one by one, mission scientists debunked as they made their findings public. So far, they have detected no traces of methane in the Martian air, no unequivocal chemical evidence of water on Mars today, and no native organic compounds that would indicate that life had once been present.

What they are finding in Gale Crater, where the rover landed, is an arid landscape of wind-swept badlands that in some ways seems hauntingly like Earth. Wheeling across the uneven terrain at 1.5 inches per second, the rover has recorded panoramic vistas that often resemble the Mojave Desert. It spotted rounded pebbles that scientists believe were likely shaped by an ancient ankle-deep, fast-flowing stream. Its chemical sensors detected basalt rocks that could have been lifted from a Hawaiian lava flow.
By all accounts, engineers are finding the $2.5 billion Curiosity rover—the most complex spacecraft ever landed on another planet—more difficult to operate than anticipated. The 1-ton, nuclear-powered vehicle totes 11 instruments, from a laser to a robotic whisk broom designed to sweep samples clear of the Martian dust. Even as routine a task as extending the craft's heavy mobile arm has proved tricky because the craft can more easily overbalance than engineers had estimated.
"It is a complicated beast," said Rob Manning, chief engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory, as the Curiosity craft's overall mission is called. "Everything is taking longer than we had hoped."
Even so, the mission's 425 scientists are feasting on data. "Scientifically, it is fantastic," said NASA planetary soil scientist Doug Ming at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, who helps run the rover's X-ray spectroscopy apparatus. So far, the craft has beamed back 18,226 images and nearly 10 gigabytes of raw information about the planet's geology, mineral chemistry, soil composition, and atmosphere. In five months of prospecting, scientists have thoroughly analyzed three air samples and three soil samples. The researchers also have tested 100 rocks and soil specimens by blasting them with the rover's laser and then scrutinizing the vaporized material.
In all, the rover has traveled 2,312 feet from where it touched down on Aug. 5. Recently it rolled by a sinuous set of dark-colored rocks that NASA scientists named "Snake River," before parking itself in a shallow flat depression called Yellowknife Bay.
There, the rover's cameras and sensors revealed a range of rocks that may have been formed by water, including veins, nodules, cross-bedded layering, and a lustrous pebble embedded in sandstone.
NASA officials named the rocky outcrop chosen for drilling after John Klein, a former Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2011.

"We are now less than a mile from where we landed yet the geology is intensely diverse," said space scientist Roger Wiens at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, who is principal investigator for the rover's laser sensor. "It is a scientist's dream."

Flights targeted for 2017 and 2021

2013-01-16T14:23:00.003-08:00

NASA, Europeans uniting to send space capsule to moon, flights targeted for 2017 and 2021

APE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA is teaming up with the European Space Agency to get astronauts beyond Earth's orbit.
Europe will provide the propulsion and power compartment for NASA's Orion crew capsule, officials said Wednesday. This so-called service module will be based on Europe's supply ship used for the International Space Station.

'You don't design a car to just go to the grocery store.'

- NASA's human exploration chief, Bill Gerstenmaier

Orion's first trip is an unmanned mission in 2017. Any extra European parts will be incorporated in the first manned mission of Orion in 2021.
“Space has long been a frontier for international cooperation as we explore,” said Dan Dumbacher, deputy associate administrator for Exploration System Development at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This latest chapter builds on NASA’s excellent relationship with ESA as a partner in the International Space Station, and helps us move forward in our plans to send humans farther into space than we’ve ever been before.”
NASA's human exploration chief, Bill Gerstenmaier, said both missions will be aimed at the vicinity of the moon. The exact details are being worked out; lunar fly-bys, rather than landings, are planned.
NASA wants to ultimately use the bell-shaped Orion spacecraft to carry astronauts to asteroids and Mars. International cooperation will be crucial for such endeavors, Gerstenmaier told reporters.
The United States has yet to establish a clear path forward for astronauts, 1 1/2 years after NASA's space shuttles stopped flying. The basic requirements for Orion spacecraft are well understood regardless of the destination, allowing work to proceed, Gerstenmaier said.
"You don't design a car to just go to the grocery store," he told reporters.
Getting to 2017 will be challenging, officials for both space programs acknowledged. Gerstenmaier said he's not "100 percent comfortable" putting Europe in such a crucial role. "But I'm never 100 percent comfortable" with spaceflight, he noted. "We'll see how it goes, but we've done it smartly."
The space station helped build the foundation for this new effort, he said.
Former astronaut Thomas Reiter, Europe's director of human spaceflight, said it makes sense for the initial Orion crew to include Europeans. For now, though, the focus is on the technical aspects, he said. NASA will supply no-longer-used space shuttle engines for use on the service modules.
“NASA’s decision ... is a strong sign of trust and confidence in ESA’s capabilities, for ESA it is an important contribution to human exploration,” said Thomas Reiter, ESA director of Human Spaceflight and Operations.
Reiter put the total European contribution at nearly $600 million.
Orion originally was part of NASA's Constellation program that envisioned moon bases in the post-shuttle era. President Barack Obama canceled Constellation, but Orion was repurposed and survived.
A test flight of the capsule is planned for next year; it will fly 3,600 miles away and then return.

Europe and US agree details for Orion astronaut spacecraft

2013-01-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

An artist's impression of the Orion capsule attached to its European-built service module

The US and Europe have cemented their plan to work together on the Americans' next-generation capsule system to take humans beyond Earth.

The Orion vehicle is being built to carry astronauts to the Moon, asteroids and Mars, but it will need a means to propel itself through space.
Europe has now formally agreed to provide this technology.
Space agency executives have just signed an "implementing agreement" to cover the legal aspects of the work.
The first flight of Orion with its European-built "service module" will take place in 2017.
This demonstration will be unmanned and will see Orion go around the back of the Moon before returning to Earth for an ocean splashdown.
If all goes well, a crew is expected to repeat the feat in about 2021. The venture would echo the famous Apollo 8 mission of 1968.
The service module is the unit that sits directly behind the capsule and provides the propulsion, power, temperature control, as well as holding the astronauts’ supplies of water and air.
"This is a new page in the transatlantic co-operation," said Thomas Reiter, the director of human spaceflight and operations at the European Space Agency (Esa).
"This is the first time that Esa is involved in the critical path for a human transportation system. It is a fantastic perspective for the future, taking humans beyond low-Earth orbit to new destinations for exploration," he told BBC News.
The current plan calls for Europe to build the prototype module for 2017 and a number of components that would be needed for the second vehicle in 2021, although a formal go-ahead to complete this additional model is some years off.
A clear subtext, of course, is that Europe hopes this initial deal will develop into a long-term relationship, and that this will increase the chances of its astronauts joining their American colleagues on missions into deep space.

The ATV-derived service module, with its distinctive solar wing configuration, is shown in this artwork participating in a mission to an asteroid Europe and the US will be using a barter arrangement to fund the module’s production.

This means the Americans will pay no cash for the unit. Rather, they will view the free receipt of the hardware as compensation for the costs they themselves have incurred through Europe’s use of the International Space Station (ISS).
To date, these costs have been covered by Europe’s deliveries of cargo to the platform using its big robotic freighter known as the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV).
But the production of these ATVs is nearing its end, and without the Orion option Europe would be in debt to the US to the cash-equivalent of 450m euros (£375m; $600m) for the period 2017-2020.
"More importantly than that financial piece is just the experience gained through the International Space Station," said Bill Gerstenmaier, Nasa's associate administrator for human exploration and operations.
"To build that wonderful facility on orbit, we needed to work a lot of technical issues, a lot of technical problems. And that experienced gained and that trust that grew between our European partners and our Nasa teams allowed us to go ahead and put together this service module agreement you see today."
European industry will now take key elements from the design of its ATV to make the Orion service module.
This work is quite advanced because feasibility studies in recent years have already considered how the ATV itself could be adapted into a crew vehicle.
"We are not starting from scratch," Mr Reiter explained. "Were that the case, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to meet the scheduling constraints."
One small, but nonetheless intriguing, aspect of the service module’s production is the role, if any, that might be given to UK industry.
It was Britain’s offer during discussions at the recent Esa Ministerial Council in November to put 20m euros (£16m; $27m) into the cost of the vehicle that helped ease the project towards approval. Under Esa rules, the UK could expect some return on this investment.
Mr Reiter said it was too early to talk specifics. However, he did add that at least some of the return could take the form of equipment procured for use on the space station's European science laboratory, Columbus.
Esa is expected to sign a formal contract with Astrium (Bremen, Germany) in the coming days to lead the production of the service module.

Brisbane Times NASA: Closest planet to sun, Mercury, harbors ice

2012-12-03T14:14:00.001-08:00

This photo made available by NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington on Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012 shows a 68-mile-diameter crater, large indentation at center, in the north polar region of Mercury which has been shown to harbor water ice, thanks to measurements by the Messenger spacecraft. Scientists made the announcement Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Just in time for Christmas, scientists have confirmed a vast amount of ice at the north pole — on Mercury, the closest planet to the sun.

The findings are from NASA’s Mercury-orbiting probe, Messenger, and the subject of three scientific papers released Thursday by the journal Science.

The frozen water is located in regions of Mercury’s north pole that always are in shadows, essentially impact craters. It’s believed the south pole harbors ice as well, though there are no hard data to support it. Messenger orbits much closer to the north pole than the south.

‘‘If you add it all up, you have on the order of 100 billion to 1 trillion metric tons of ice,’’ said David Lawrence of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. ‘‘The uncertainty on that number is just how deep it goes.’’

The ice is thought to be at least 1½ feet deep — and possibly as much as 65 feet deep.

There’s enough polar ice at Mercury, in fact, to bury an area the size of Washington, D.C., by two to 2½ miles deep, said Lawrence, the lead author of one of the papers.

‘‘These are very exciting results,’’ he added at a news conference.

For two decades, radar measurements taken from Earth have suggested the presence of ice at Mercury’s poles. Now scientists know for sure, thanks to Messenger, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

The water almost certainly came from impacting comets, or possibly asteroids. Ice is found at the surface, as well as buried under a dark material.

Messenger was launched in 2004 and went into orbit 1½ years ago around Mercury, where temperatures reach 800 degrees. NASA hopes to continue observations well into next year.

Columbia University’s Sean Solomon, principal scientist for Messenger, stressed that no one is suggesting that Mercury might hold evidence of life, given the presence of water. But the latest findings may help explain how water and other building blocks of life arrived elsewhere in the solar system, he said.

Mercury is becoming the subject of new interest ‘‘where it wasn’t much of one before,’’ Solomon said.